Donald Trump’s Profound Laziness Is Already on Full Display

Welcome to the first “fake it ’til you make it” presidency in American history.

President Donald Trump's first three days are in the books, and they proved exactly as horrifying and surreal as the last 18 months that Candidate Trump inflicted on America. On Saturday, while on an official visit to Central Intelligence Agency headquarters—and in front of a memorial honoring the men and women of the intelligence community who died in service of their country—Trump rambled angrily about his "running war with the media," just moments after trotting out newly minted White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer to shout delusional, easily disprovable lies about, of all things, the number of people who attended his inauguration. What's clear is that unapologetic propagandists now occupy the White House dais, and for the next four years, Americans will be governed by officials who remain wholly uninterested in earning their trust.

Trump's obsession with crowd size is emblematic of his most crippling insecurity: He has no creativity, no originality, and no clue what to do next. His desperate craving to be liked runs so deep that, as he transformed from political outsider to major-party nominee to president-elect, he began shamelessly borrowing ideas from the types of respected, popular politicians that he wished he could be. His wife's address at the Republican National Convention lifted entire sections from a speech delivered by the previous First Lady. He stole an inspiring photograph of giddy, euphoric crowds taken at the inauguration of his predecessor, because no such crowds attended his. Even the smallest subjects cannot escape this creatively bankrupt laziness: When planning the inaugural ball, his people requested an exact replica of the cake President Obama had made four years earlier. So, yes, Donald Trump kicked off his presidency by plagiarizing a cake.

The little indiscretions are funny, but they are more revealing than entertaining. For years, the Republican Party has solemnly pledged to repeal the Affordable Care Act, that dastardly albatross responsible for making healthcare available to 20 million previously uninsured Americans, as soon as they are given the chance. Every serious GOP presidential candidate—including Trump—made their plan for replacing the ACA a central tenet of their pitch to prospective voters. On his first day in office, Trump's version of delivering on his promise was issuing an executive order that "directed" federal agencies to try really hard to make Obamacare go away.

It is the policy of my Administration to seek the prompt
repeal of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (Public Law
111-148), as amended (the "Act"). In the meantime, pending such
repeal, it is imperative for the executive branch to ensure that the
law is being efficiently implemented, take all actions consistent with
law to minimize the unwarranted economic and regulatory burdens of the
Act, and prepare to afford the States more flexibility and control to
create a more free and open healthcare market.

This isn't leadership. It demonstrates no coherent vision. It's a feeble, feckless, empty gesture, the kind you make when you (1) know you're supposed to think that something is bad, but (2) also aren't really sure what that thing is and can't be bothered to read the Simple English Wikipedia article describing it, either. Even Trump's omnipresent campaign slogan—"Make America Great Again"—shows just how brutally bereft of original ideas he is. It's the sort of vague, aspirational nonsense that one would expect to hear from a man who learned everything he knows about being president of the United States from watching other men play one on TV.

Of course, no newly elected president steps into the White House fully prepared for the myriad challenges he or she will face. But Trump is unwilling or unable to grasp his shortcomings, and instead appears prepared to mask them by employing a two-pronged strategy: Come out with strong, forceful takes on substantively irrelevant subjects that he can easily understand, and glibly borrow from others when it comes to the hard political decisions that Americans expect him to make. This patchwork, smoke-and-mirrors approach to governance isn't sustainable, but so far, it's all he's got.

Tom Ford, Chance the Rapper, and More Have a Message for President Obama:

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